» Sarah Palin draws very different responses from non-working mums and feminists

Sarah Palin draws very different responses from non-working mums and feminists

Published: Wednesday, September 17, 2008, 17:46 [IST]

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Washington, September 17 : While U.S. mums-at-homes are drawing inspiration from Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin, feminists do not consider her to be the right candidate.

"This is fascinating. What we are witnessing is the historic hypocrisy of second-wave feminists. Whether you agree with Governor Palin or not, she is feminism in its truest and purest form," the Washington Times quoted Michelle Bernard, president of the Independent Women's Forum, as saying.

"She has found a way to balance work and family the way all women hope to - with the help of a loving family. Sarah Palin is everything the feminists fought for," she added.

Feminists, however, still seem not to be in a mood to vote for Palin.

"We are not against a woman on the presidential ticket. We wish it was a ticket that stood for women's issues. Where does the Palin ticket stand?" asked Eleanor Smeal of the Feminist Majority, who announced Tuesday that the organization - along with the National Organization for Women - endorsed Democrats Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the White House race.

"We want someone who is not following a script, saying what she's been told to say," said E. Faye Williams, national chairwoman of the National Congress of Black Women - which also endorsed the Obama-Biden ticket.

In a recent survey of voters conducted by the Associated Press, 65 per cent of white women said that Palin shared their values, compared with 46 per cent who said the same of Biden.

A new Newsweek poll revealed that support for John McCain among white females was 53 per cent, compared with 37 per cent who favoured Obama.

The transformation of Republicans into energized Palin fans was quick.

When Pew Research Center conducted a survey of 2,300 voters shortly before McCain announced that the former beauty queen was his running mate, only one in five Republican respondents said that he/she would support a candidate who was the mother of school-aged children.

Fifty-three per cent of Republicans surveyed at the time said that working mothers were a "bad thing for society".

Among Democrats, a third supported mother-politicians, while 38 percent did not favour working mothers.

"Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an explosion of brand new style and muscular American feminism. Palin is about as far away from the world of Gloria Steinem and Co. as one can get," observed writer Camille Paglia, an Obama supporter.